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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29750991">Survivors</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsong26/pseuds/shadowsong26'>shadowsong26</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Miscellaneous One Shots [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, bittersweet and melancholy, crossposted from tumblr</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:35:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29750991</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsong26/pseuds/shadowsong26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the years after the War ends, Rex and Ventress cross paths.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Asajj Ventress &amp; Rex | CT-7567</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Miscellaneous One Shots [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066331</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Survivors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted to tumblr on 5/27/20, in response to a prompt received through Discord as part of a game where a topic was given to the chat, and then we drew/were assigned two characters. The specific prompt was "Character A saves Character B;" I was assigned Rex and Ventress.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
  <p>The first time he saw her after--<em>after,</em> was maybe two months after the end.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It wasn't that he couldn't handle himself, couldn't've figured out his own exit eventually, but...well, he was still trying to find his footing in the new world and he hadn't really slept much, the past few weeks.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>So there he was, pinned down in a dead-end ally in a dead-end town on a dead-end moon in the Outer Rim; local thugs he'd underestimated closing in, and then--</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>A familiar hum in the air; a familiar scent of smoke and ozone. Part of him froze, expecting...expecting...</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He didn't know <em>what</em> he was expecting.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But then he saw <em>her,</em> like in the nightmares he sometimes had; a whip-thin silhouette in the flickering streetlights as she retracted her blades.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Except--not like his nightmares. Same silhouette, same hands curled around her weapons, but...not the same woman. Not exactly. Different, in some way he couldn't quite define.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Don't think this makes us friends, soldier," she said. Her <em>voice,</em> at least, was the same; a low, gravelly hiss. Almost comforting, weirdly enough, given how much <em>else</em> had changed.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Wouldn't dream of it," he said.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And then he blinked and, with a whisper of fabric on pavement, she was gone.</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><div class="">
  <hr/>
</div><div class="">
  <p> </p>
  <p>The second time shouldn't have surprised him, but it did.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It was maybe six months later, and his nightmares weren't so bad anymore, but he was still sort of figuring things out. Where to go, what to do...</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He hadn't heard from--anyone. No one to give him a direction. No one to give him--</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Well, probably for the best.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He'd stopped for a drink in a cantina, figuring he could maybe pick up some bodyguard work. Pay for that kind of thing was enough to keep him fed, at the very least, and any danger involved was usually nothing he couldn't handle.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And then he heard a commotion from the back alley. The distinctive sound of a body being thrown against metal trash cans.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>No one else in the cantina looked up from their drinks. Wasn't that kind of place. But he was curious. And maybe just drunk enough to be <em>stupid</em> enough to indulge it.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He stood up, discreetly as he could, and slipped through the crowd out the back to see what the hell was going on.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And there she was, struggling with a heavily-built Twi'lek; clawing at a cord around her neck--thin leather, made from some kind of lizard, scales still in. Nasty-looking thing. <em>Sharp.</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Next thing he knew, his pistol was in his hand and he fired one clean shot, right through the whip, which went slack.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Cursing, the Twi'lek turned on him, but <em>she</em> was faster. One lightsaber hilt slammed into the back of the Twi'lek's head and he dropped like a sack of rocks at her feet.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Panting, massaging her neck, she eyed him warily.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Don't get used to it," he said. Thought about adding harpy, or witch, or any of the other names his--he'd heard flung at her in the past. But it didn't feel right. "This just makes us even."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"...fair."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He nodded once, then turned on his heel, leaving her in that alley to clean up her mess.</p>
  <p> </p>
</div><div class="">
  <hr/>
</div><div class="">
  <p> </p>
  <p>If that had been the end of it, he would've put it behind him. He found his own path--his own <em>purpose</em>--not too much later, anyway; rumors, that some of his brothers had quietly jumped ship, after. Most of those rumors led nowhere, to be fair, but he hoped that, one day, he'd get lucky.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But then he ran into her a third time, and then a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh...</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Every few months, give or take, the two of them would cross paths. One of them would be in trouble, the other would help them out; they'd trade an insult or two, and move on. Probably one of them was ahead at this point, in terms of who owed who what, but somewhere around the tenth rescue, he'd stopped counting.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It was almost eight years before they actually <em>talked.</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His hair had a fair amount of silver in it now; hers was different, like it had been every time, longish at the moment, in a single braid to keep it out of her face.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But this time, no one was shooting at either of them. No one was chasing either of them. No whips, no weapons, just...an empty alley, and a bottle in her hands.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She offered it to him, one eyebrow raised.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He nodded and sat next to her; took a swig of the burning liquor, then passed it back.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>For a long time, they sat there in silence, passing the bottle back and forth, watching the planet's four moons drift across the sky.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Why?" he asked. "That first time, all those years ago...why'd you help me?"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She scoffed, and took another sip before answering. "How many people remember?" she asked. "How many people are left who <em>know?</em> What it was really like. All the things we saw, all the things we <em>did..."</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It had been different for her. She'd been--Dooku's assassin, used, broken, and cast aside. A long time before he and his brothers had been...used, broken, and cast aside. And in a very different way.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But at the same time...</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"...yeah," he said, pulling the bottle back for another drink.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"This doesn't make us friends," she warned him again.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"'Course not," he said. "Don't get used to it."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She smirked at him and stood up in one smooth motion. "You can finish off the bottle," she said. "Not like I can't get more."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Thanks," he said, raising it to her briefly, in a kind of melancholy toast.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Until next time, Rex."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Until next time."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>They weren't friends. They would never <em>be</em> friends. Eight years of rescues couldn't make up for all the history before.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But she was right. Opposite sides or no, they'd shared a War. In more ways, he realized, than any of them would've dreamed in the thick of it.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It didn't make them friends.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But it did make them something more than enemies.</p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Original notes from tumblr: <strike>the ending to <i>Dark Disciple</i> is bad and it should feel bad.</strike> Which, I mean. Full disclosure, I genuinely loved a lot of that book until the ending but yeah, this fic obviously ignores that.</p><p>Anyway, I do like the way this one turned out, and I hope you do, too! Thanks for stopping by! &lt;3 shadowsong</p></blockquote></div></div>
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